Is Gregory Fong's i-chuan in Oregon a Bullshido CMA school?

http://i-chuan.net/
I started in this school almost a month ago, taking his 7 star mantis classes. My brother keeps saying this school is a mcdojo. I dont beleive that is the case, because unlike many mcdojos, we focus on physical conditioning as well as technique. You wouldnt believe how muscular our 60 year old instructor is. (yeah its sorta racist but isnt it usually good to have an old chinese man teach you cma?) And also, during forms, he teaches us practical application of the moves. The thing i most admire is, he teaches and trains the kids as hard and the same as the adults. Sometimes even pushing them harder. Tell me your opinions

McDojo: School that operates with the foremost intent to milk as much money as possible out of students.

Bullshido: A martial arts concept, technique or idea that is proclaimed to be true but not true in objective reality.

It's quite common for schools that teach bullshido to also be mcdojos but this isn't always the case.

Now onto your post:

As soon as I click the link to your school I see this:

With the words: "Sifu Fong demonstrates combat stance" under it. To cut a long story short, that's not a combat stance.

Hard conditioning doesn't mean the techniques you learn will work in a fight. Nothing says I can't give you some brutal exercises before progressing onto chambered punches in horse stance.

Muscular does not equate to instructed techniques working.

When he shows the "practical applications" what form does this take? I'll take a shot in the dark and guess he does it on compliant partners only under tightly choreographed scenarios. As tough, muscular and well conditioned as he is, you can't tell anything about the viability of techniques from a dead demo. Does he, or anyone else pull these techniques off against resisting opponents who use realistic, broken rhythm attacks?

Pretty much everything I've seen on Chinese martial arts suggests to me that they are silly. The tiny fraction that doesn't look silly has been altered significantly.

I do not think your Sifu is selling you bullshido, and he's does not appear to be running a McDojo

That being said, he's also probably not training you to fight in a cage or on the "street"...

"Daily kung fu practice provides an energetic aerobic workout well suited to teenagers and young adults. Through a series of punching and kicking drills, students are taught to coordinate hands and feet with speed, focus, and timing with the ultimate aim of developing and using power efficiently."

"Similarly, I do not focus my attention on the so-called practical applications of the various individual movements in the forms I teach. The true meaning of a given movement in a form is not its application, but rather the unlimited potential of the mind to provide muscular and skeletal support for that movement. In the end, a martial arts form is simply a teaching ool to help the student learn to integrate mind and body. Once the student has learned to do that, he or she may continue to practice the form for fun or discard it in favor of something more spontaneous."

With the words: "Sifu Fong demonstrates combat stance" under it. To cut a long story short, that's not a combat stance.

Actually, if you read the article Fong wrote on "combat stance", you would quickly realize that his definition of "combat" within the context of "combat stance" is not the same as what you are expecting.

What Fong talks about in his article on "combat stance" is only very vaguely alluded to in some of the other definitions of the word "combat". This is more likely a case of a term translated from one language which doesn't exactly fit the English word choice of translation. Thus, just because you read a word which is one of your "hot buttons", I suspect you made a snap judgment as to the picture.

Calm down, it's only ones and zeros.

"Your calm and professional manner of response is really draining all the fun out of this. Can you reply more like Dr. Fagbot or something? Call me some names, mention some sand in my vagina or something of the sort. You can't expect me to come up with reasonable arguments man!" -- MaverickZ

http://i-chuan.net/
I started in this school almost a month ago, taking his 7 star mantis classes. My brother keeps saying this school is a mcdojo. I dont beleive that is the case, because unlike many mcdojos, we focus on physical conditioning as well as technique. You wouldnt believe how muscular our 60 year old instructor is. (yeah its sorta racist but isnt it usually good to have an old chinese man teach you cma?) And also, during forms, he teaches us practical application of the moves. The thing i most admire is, he teaches and trains the kids as hard and the same as the adults. Sometimes even pushing them harder. Tell me your opinions

1. What is your purpose for studying martial arts? then ask yourself, is this fong fellow going to give you what you want?
2. Do you enjoy the classes? Do you feel you are getting something out of it? If so, then who cares what your brother thinks? This question, btw, is only relevant if what fong teaches is what you are actually looking for.
3. It is not necessarily so that an old chinese guy is best for teaching cma. in fact, some of the best martial artists i've trained with have been quite young, and definitely not asian.

Getting back to question #1...if you are looking for an art that has a sense of tradition, lets you get a rigorous work out, can give you some skills for self defense, and is something that you can carry with you into old age, then go ahead, and try i-chuan.

If you are looking for something that will give you realistic skill sets that you can use either in the ring or in the street, then you should take a closer examination of this school - not that it won't work, but there may be other arts (i.e. kyokushin, judo, bjj, Muay Thai) that are more efficient...but they come with a cost (i.e. intense training, certain mindset, etc).

Based on what I'm reading, Fong doesn't seem to be excessively marketing his material, excessively catering to children, and from what you say, it sounds like he takes the training seriously. That doesn't make it a Mcdojo in my eyes.

Re: the bullshido comment - I don't see any blatant claims by Fong of what he is capable of...in fact it seems that he adheres to a pretty traditional view of chinese martial arts...so I would not call his stuff bullshido either.

His lineage sound authentic. You'll never get any kudos from the serious cagefighting crowd, but if you currently consider the training to be "hard" and or "challenging", and feel like its making you stronger and taking you out of your old paradigm, I say go with it.

IMHO - From what read about him, seen him do, and talked to him about (and yes, I live down the road from Chinatown Portland) he's good. I'm actually looking into a few things that I'm questioning myself, but all in all, he's a great teacher, his students seem to be good, and he's a really nice guy to boot!

Out of the very few traditional CMA teachers in this area, he'd be one of the few I'd actually go to. But since I'm already involved in one, I'm going to stay where I'm at!!!

I do not think your Sifu is selling you bullshido, and he's does not appear to be running a McDojo

That being said, he's also probably not training you to fight in a cage or on the "street"...

"Daily kung fu practice provides an energetic aerobic workout well suited to teenagers and young adults. Through a series of punching and kicking drills, students are taught to coordinate hands and feet with speed, focus, and timing with the ultimate aim of developing and using power efficiently."

"Similarly, I do not focus my attention on the so-called practical applications of the various individual movements in the forms I teach. The true meaning of a given movement in a form is not its application, but rather the unlimited potential of the mind to provide muscular and skeletal support for that movement. In the end, a martial arts form is simply a teaching ool to help the student learn to integrate mind and body. Once the student has learned to do that, he or she may continue to practice the form for fun or discard it in favor of something more spontaneous."